"A Father's Hope and Warning"

Pastor Tom Ascol of the Founders Conference wrote that he keeps the following quote on the wall of his study:

A Father's Hope and Warning

Lord, I find the genealogy of my Savior strangely checkered with four remarkable changes in four immediate generations.

(1) Rehoboam begat Abijah; that is, a bad father begat a bad son.

(2) Abijah begat Asa; that is, a bad father begat a good son.

(3) Asa begat Jehoshaphat; that is, a good father a good son.

(4) Jehoshaphat begat Joram; that is, a good father a bad son.

I see, Lord, from hence that my father's piety cannot be entailed; that is bad news for me. But I see also that actual impiety is not always hereditary; that is good news for my son.

-- Thomas Fuller, Chaplain to Oliver Cromwell